Learn English Listening to News Stories Ep 793
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Hi there, and welcome to this podcast from Adept English. Let's start this year with our first news podcast. This is where I cover current news stories, ones which you've probably heard before in your own language, but now you hear them in English. And this is really good English language learning practice for you. Lots of vocabulary, lots of grammar practice,

all through listening. These news podcasts are our most popular type of podcast. Hello, I'm Hilary and you're listening to Adept English. We will help you to speak English fluently. All you have to do is listen. So, start listening now and find out how it works.

So please sit back and enjoy our first one of 2025. So very much in the news as I'm recording this are the wildfires in Los Angeles. The pictures are all over the news and the wildfires there have been devastating. The word wildfire, that's W-I-L-D-F-I-R,

is, of course, a compound word, wild and fire. And it means a fire which has broken out naturally amongst natural vegetation. That's trees and plants. V-E-G-E-T-A-T-I-O-N. Vegetation means things that grow. So wildfires happen, of course, where the land is very dry. And apparently the Los Angeles area has had no significant rainfall for about 10 months.

California as a whole has a problem with lack of water and the fire department fighting the fires reports that their supplies of water are running low. Add into the mix that there are strong winds which are fanning the flames and causing the fires to spread. Residents are being urged to take their animals, their pets,

and basic provisions meaning water, food and clothes and get out, evacuate, E-V-A-C-U-A-T-E, in other words. Some of the buildings at risk in the LA area have been saved from the fires because the brush, B-R-U-S-H, that means dry vegetation, dry plants growing around their homes and

have been cleared. That's brush or brushwood. This has provided a firebreak in some areas, which has succeeded in saving some homes. But so many buildings have been destroyed. And as I'm speaking, it's still happening. Whole neighbourhoods, whole areas have burned down with nothing much left than rubble.

R-U-B-B-L-E, and that means the remains of buildings on the ground. Many people there are without electricity and the whole area is in some chaos. This was not much helped by a phone alert.

which went out on Thursday saying, evacuate, get out. And this was sent to every mobile or cell phone in the Los Angeles area. That's about 10 million people. I'm sure this news story will continue a while longer and may have developed further by the time you're listening to this. Hopefully the wildfires will be contained at some point and the damage will be limited. But the problem for California and South

some other parts of the world is related to changes in the patterns of our climate, C-L-I-M-A-T-E. What they've experienced in the Los Angeles area for the last few years has been very wet years with a lot of rainfall, followed by very dry years.

So this means that during the wet years, the plants, the vegetation has grown a great deal. And then during the dry weather years, this vegetation has dried out. This means that there's a lot of fuel in the form of dried grass and brushwood, which is feeding the wildfires much more so than if it was hot

dry weather all the time when nothing much would grow. So that's the first story. A message from Adept English now. Let us help you get your English language learning back on track after the holidays. Don't forget that Adept English has courses specifically designed for your needs.

If you need help increasing your vocabulary and with your basic English, our Most Common 500 Words course is for you. If you're at the level where you'd like to improve your English conversation, our new Activate Your Listening course will help you with that. And if you're at the level of really just needing to improve your spoken English, then the Adept English Consonant Pronunciation course would be a really good buy.

All of it is listen and learn, just like the podcast. And if you just like more material like the podcasts, we do have a paid subscription service.

which is fairly new. If you sign up for this, it doesn't cost very much and you get a further eight audio podcasts every month on a variety of topics. It hardly costs anything at all and you know how much this would help your English language learning. Go to our website at adeptenglish.com to find out more about all of this. Kickstart your English language learning for 2025.

Also in the news at the moment, Donald Trump is making waves again by saying that he wants to buy Greenland. That's what the papers are reporting. And he's even suggesting he would use military force if necessary to accomplish this. Using military force, that means bringing the army in, which is pretty unthinkable to most people. At

the moment, the 57,000 mainly Inuit, that's I-N-U-I-T, population of Greenland, live in an autonomous territory. Autonomous, A-U-T-O-N-U-I-T.

N-O-M-O-U-S. Autonomous means self-governing. And Greenland has had self-rule since 1979, but it still sits within the Kingdom of Denmark. So the economy of Greenland is dependent on money from Denmark. Roughly half the country's income comes from

from Denmark. And this means that the inhabitants, I-N-H-A-B-I-T-A-N-T, that means simply people who live there, the inhabitants of Greenland are fully Danish citizens, just like the inhabitants of the Faroe Islands.

This means they're also European Union citizens. Meta Fredriksson, the prime minister of Denmark, has understandably been anxious to calm things down. Her view is that only the people of Greenland can decide. But it does sound likely that at some point there will be a referendum. That's R-E-F-E-R-E-N-D-U-M.

R-E-F-E-R-E-N-D-U-M. That's a vote where the people decide something. The referendum, of course, will be on independence for Greenland. However, true independence is difficult if you're dependent on income from another country for your economy. The German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, has come back more forcibly, saying you cannot

violate a country's borders and that this applies to every country, no matter whether it's a small one or a very powerful one. And French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrault said that the EU could not let other nations...

attack its sovereign borders. So this is all going to be a bit of a bus stop at the start of the Trump presidency. Why does Trump have such an interest in Greenland, where three quarters of the land is covered permanently with ice and it's the most sparsely populated area outside of Antarctica?

That means the fewest people per square mile. Well, there are plenty natural minerals in Greenland, and these are more accessible as global warming reduces the ice cover. But surely if these belong to anyone, they belong to the inhabitants of Greenland. But perhaps more important for Donald Trump, it's the strategic value of Greenland.

That's strategic, S-T-R-A-T-E-G-I-C, from the word strategy. So here it means relevant to plans if there was a war or military conflict. So the strategic value of Greenland lies in the fact that it sits between the US and Russia. If you look at the world map,

From the north, you can see this. In 1951, an agreement with Denmark gave the US a role in defending the territory of Greenland and the right to build and maintain military bases there, which, of course, they're keen to continue with. And if there was an exchange of missiles between the US and Russia, perish the thought, you might say, the shortest route for this is over Greenland.

And it's not the first time that America has tried to buy Greenland. In 1946, the US offered $100 million for the territory, thinking it was vital for national security after the Second World War. But the Danish government said no. And Donald Trump also announced his intention in 2019 to buy Greenland.

But this was shortly before the end of his presidency. So the problem kind of went away. Scary stuff. Let's hope the residents of Greenland vote to stay self-governing, part of Denmark and part of the EU. That sounds safer.

Wow, that was all heavy and political. How about a lighter news story to end this podcast? And how about some good news if you like coffee? The Adept English podcast is fuelled by coffee. I don't mean we're sponsored. What I mean is lovely ground filter coffee inspires me to write about all sorts of subjects for the podcast. I do like the effect of caffeine

on the brain. Caffeine is an important part of coffee and why it's so pleasurable. So good news this week, a study published in the European Heart Journal, presumably a publication, a journal which discusses heart health and research into diseases of the heart. That's H-E-A-R-T, the thing that

beats in your chest and keeps you alive. That's your heart. Heart disease research is important as it remains the number one killer of people across the world. So what did the study from Tulane University Obesity Research Center in the U.S.,

actually say? Well, the research results suggest that the time of day you drink your caffeine may matter and may help you lower your risk of an early death. The study found that those people who drink coffee in the morning only had a lower risk of dying from heart or cardiovascular disease and had a lower risk of death.

than those who drank coffee all day. But as usual with these studies, a caveat, that's C-A-V-E-A-T, meaning a statement that says beware, the research could not prove that coffee, caffeine was the only cause here. However...

Going with what the research suggests, researchers found that people who drink their coffee only in the morning were 16% less likely to have died in the 10-year period of the study. That's 16% less compared to those who didn't drink coffee at all. More significantly, they were 31% less likely to have died from heart disease. So it sounds as though coffee in the morning is good for you.

or perhaps at least protective of your heart. The researchers were clear they don't yet understand why. And as ever, they said more research is needed. But this means that I can enjoy my morning cup of strong coffee even more. And there's no danger of me drinking coffee past lunchtime because genetically I'm what's known as caffeine sensitive. So coffee in the afternoon or evening or

That would be a recipe for no sleep at all for me. And I don't want that. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this caffeine-fueled podcast.

podcast and look forward to many more in 2025. Enough for now. Have a lovely day. Speak to you again soon. Goodbye. Thank you so much for listening. Please help me tell others about this podcast by reviewing or rating it. And please share it on social media. You can find more listening lessons and a free English course at adeptenglish.com.